No, Dead Island 2 Has not Been Cancelled

Deep Silver may have gone dark about Dead Island 2 more than a year ago, but the game is still very much in development, the publisher has informed Eurogamer. When the Dead Island sequel will finally release or when Deep Silver will even share any more details about the game or show it off again, however, is anyone’s guess.

“Dead Island 2 is in development at Sumo Digital, and we are excited by the progress the team [is] making with Deep Silver’s most successful IP,” Deep Silver said in a statement. “When we are ready to share more information, we will.”

Following up on rumors that the game was stuck in “development hell,” Eurogamer felt compelled to reach out. If Deep Silver is to be believed, and there’s little reason to assume they shouldn’t be, that’s not the case.

Of course, Dead Island 2’s development has been anything but smooth. After the original 2013 game crossed over five million in sales, it became one of Deep Silver’s biggest properties. The sequel was announced during E3 2014 with a planned spring 2015 release date that Deep Silver was ultimately unable to meet.

Spec Ops: The Line developer Yager was originally developing the game, but Deep Silver pulled the project from Yager in 2015, citing creative differences. Yager was then forced to shut down a new branch of its studio that had been created for the express purpose of developing Dead Island 2.

After Deep Silver handed the reigns to Sumo Digital, the publisher mostly kept quiet about things, though it did tweet in July 2016 that it would show Deep Silver “when it’s ready to show” and that it would release “more information on Dead Island 2 at a later stage” but was “still working on it.” Apparently, that status has changed little in the 10 months since.